Samsung Galaxy S8 shows up with specs, pricing, and launch date

Samsung’s highly anticipated Galaxy S8 may have had its launch date moved to March 29 — a month after Mobile World Congress (MWC) — but that doesn’t mean the leaks are delayed as well. Here’s our first real look at the company’s next flagship smartphone.

Thanks to noted leakster Evan Blass, there’s not much left to the imagination — well, except the user interface. The design matches every other render we’ve seen so far, including GadgetMatch’s very own.

As we can tell from the blurry photo, the bottom end and rear of the Galaxy S8 look a lot like last year’s Galaxy Note 7 and S7 Edge, having a single speaker grille, USB-C port, single camera module, and most importantly, a 3.5mm audio jack.

The real evolution is in the front display. Following the trend started by Xiaomi and soon with LG as well, the Galaxy S8 will have a near-borderless front for its 5.8- or 6.2-inch curved AMOLED screen. That means no more iconic physical home button and capacitive keys below the display.

In addition, the fingerprint scanner had to be relocated to the back, in an awkwardly placed spot beside the camera hump. We’ll have to try it out before passing judgement, but we can already tell this will be a long handset with an unusual screen resolution.

Naturally, we can expect the additional flagship-level specifications, such as at least 4GB of memory, 64GB of storage with microSD expandability, water and dust resistance, and the latest camera technology Samsung can find (minus the extra lens).

Other expected features include an iris scanner used for logins similar to the Galaxy Note 7’s, dock compatibility to plug the Galaxy S8 to a monitor for a desktop experience, and Samsung’s own version of an AI assistant to compete with Google’s Assistant and Apple’s Siri.

Pricing is still up in the air, but it’ll definitely have a higher starting price than its predecessors’, considering how much bigger and more feature-packed the S8 is. Rumors are pegging it at €799 ($850) for the 5.8-inch model and €899 ($960) for the larger 6.2-inch variant. International rollout is said to begin on April 21.

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Samsung’s recently released Galaxy S8 has been dubbed by many as a game-changer in the smartphone arena with its winning design and high-powered specifications, but let’s talk about its feature that is most relevant to everyday life: the camera.